These are all oils on low-grade plywood panels, repurposed from a set of cheap shelving that was being tossed by a neighboring unit in my studio buildings. They are each irregular in shape and in the 10-12 inch range. The surfaces are very rough, and although the planks were already whitewashed, I added a couple thick coats of polymer gesso. I've found that I like working on the imperfect surfaces, that they keep me from getting too facile, much as working in acrylics does. (As I've noted in other posts, acrylics get clotty and slow me down; these ugly surfaces do the same, taking the oil paint in unpredictable ways across the furrows of the wood.) I've had to repurpose the paper from old drawings the same way, as I don't have a lot of money to spend on materials lately. For the moment, as I just worked on them all this past Wednesday, I don't consider any of them finished yet, but we'll see. They may be closer to finished than I know. Maybe it's time to take another look at how Braque added texture to his surfaces with sand, or how Jane Dickson paints on irregular surfaces, like astroturf.
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